The Traitor

This is a sinister post-war drama with a terrible ring of sadness and tragedy about it, as the murderer is himself unaware of the fact that there is no ground for his motive. It's a tragedy of treason, and no one understands anything about it until it's too late.

This is therefore very much a film of mysterious undercurrents, understatements and hidden meanings, a film "written between the lines". It's easy to dismiss it for its failure to convey it's true meaning, but you do it wrong if you don't give it a lot of afterthought.

The surviving members of an underground resistance group against the Nazis meet annually in an old mansion outside London to commemorate their leader who was shot on that day by the Nazis. It appears that someone in the group had betrayed him. The new leader colonel Price, played by Donald Wolfit in a typical role of his, announces his decision to find out who the traitor was among them at their new meeting, and no one is allowed to leave the place until the issue is settled. An agent is on his way from Berlin to reveal the name. He never reaches them alive, and two American intelligence officers come importuning at their meeting to make matters worse and more complicated.

Donald Wolfit is a sure name to make any film he participates in a most memorable event. Christopher Lee as the doctor attracts all suspicion from the audience by his covert attitude as of a man who knew too much. Anton Diffring as the pianist contributes with the mood by his music, which he wants to call "Prelude to Death" which is altered to "Prelude without a name" by those who want to live. It's very reminiscent and almost a paraphrase of the Warsaw Concerto, it certainly brings the same atmosphere but is less efficient as music, while the drama story here is much more interesting and goes deeper. It's the difference between before the war and after.

At the same time it's a very intriguing murder thriller on the level with Agatha Christie, but here everything is logic and natural, it's a matter of inevitable tragedy of fate and not at all an artificial intrigue, like commonly with Agatha Christie.

I was really disappointed with that spy thriller : it's slow, no movement, just people listening to each other with no intensity, no particular camera angles, the camera is just placed in front of the actors. The whole movie is boring and the final twist is ridiculously directed, I was puzzled to see that lack of intelligence. The actors all seem sleepy, even Christopher Lee. And the director Michael McCarthy directed only 8 movies rather unknown.

On the same subject, just to see an inspired direction, I advise "Marie-Octobre" directed in 1959 by Julien Duvivier, same meeting in a house with only one woman (and what a woman, Danièle Darrieux) with top notch masculine casting like Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Robert Dalban, Paul Meurisse, Serge Reggiani, Noël Roquevert, Paul Frankeur, Daniel Ivernel, ... There is real camera and setting work, and the actors are really playing tough.

The Accursed from 1957 is also known as "The Traitor."

Donald Wolfit stars as Colonel Price, a British member of the resistance, who brings his ex-resistance group members to his house in England. The group includes a Polish pianist, Thomas (Anton Diffring), Stefan Toler (Carl Jaffe) and his daughter, Vicki (Jane Griffiths), Friedrich Suderman (Karl Stepanek), and Thomas Rilke (Oscar Quitak).

They meet each year on the anniversary of their great leader, whom someone betrayed to the Nazis. This caused him to be murdered. The murderer, Price announces, is present in the house.

They await a messenger from London, but he is knifed before he can tell Price who the killer was.

Two military men arrive, Major Shayne (Robert Bray) and Lieut. Grant (John van Eyssen) arrive, who say their car is out of order and ask to use the phone. Price isn't fooled; neither are the others. They are there to investigate what's going on.

Meanwhile Price attempts to determine who the killer was. Then there is another murder. Are more coming?

Christopher Lee plays a doctor.

I wondered if this had been a play because it doesn't open much, and it's also talky, but it wasn't. It manages to hold one's interest, though not all of the acting was up to par, mainly Robert Bray's performance.

This could have been better as a TV play or radio play or anything but a film.It has a very good cast including that scene stealer,Donald Wolcott,everyone favourite German,Anton Differing,and a pre Dracula Christopher Lee.The film is an old dark house mystery with a Nazi twist.They are going to be told who was the traitor in their midst but the informer is murdered.They don't call the police and decide to find and try the murderer themselves.After another murder the culprit is finally unmasked using one of the oldest tricks known to thriller writers.So it all ends up neatly tied up.Much too much talk and rather statically filmed.

A very wordy and stagey production that could almost have been a filmed stage play with no scene changes so confined is the action in the lounge of an (old dark) house. Central is late great British classical stage thesp Sir Donald Wolfit (the inspiration for the film "The Dresser") who as usual bigs up his part.

The premiss (German resistance fighters suffering betrayal to the Gestapo) did deserve superior plot and screenplay and it is regretable that this is something of a pot-boiler. The closing scene is stagey almost to the point of self-parody (indeed I believe subsequent comic parody versions have appeared). However the method by which the murderer is tricked into revealing himself at the end is perhaps worth sitting through the remainder on a rainy afternoon.